https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-67360696


A rather worrying development. At a recent Beyonce gig, the police used facial recognition tech to scan the crowd. The logic of doing this, after the Ariana Grande concert, would appear to make sense, but they have expanded the list of potential suspects to include people on the SOR, as well as terrorists.

The PCC, Alun Michael said this:

"The view beforehand was that a watchlist should consist of two sets of individuals," he told MPs."People known to be involved in extremism and terrorism in the light of the Manchester arena bombing - and secondly of paedophiles, because there would be very large numbers of young girls attending that concert."

It's worth noting that the scan does not include everyone on the PNC, it only includes people that are part of a predetermined watchlist. They did not scan the crowd for known drug dealers for example. So how did they select those people for the watchlist? Since its not possible to tell who is a P word and who isn't, because that info is not held anywhere on the police databases, then they must have been using a database of people selected from the PNC who met other criteria.

That raises some more questions. Was everyone on the SOR part of that watchlist, or was it certain offences only? Were they only seeking people who are wanted by the police, e.g. those who were on the SOR but have disappeared, or was it anyone with an SHPO, or was it anyone with an SHPO, who has contact restrictions in their SHPO?

My gut feeling is that they just searched for anyone on the SOR, because they think we are all the same, but would it be people who are currently on the SOR, or anyone who has ever been on the SOR, even if they have now come off it?

There are a lot of unanswered questions. The most concerning of which is what do they do, if they get a match? Do they go in to the gig and arrest the person, or do they wait til afterwards and visit them at home? Do they check the persons SHPO first, to see if they are in breach, because those with online offences only should not have any restrictions on going to gigs (although some will do).

The only comforting thing about this, is that only a handful of high profile gigs are currently being spied on, but the potential for this to be expanded does exist. It's not hard to imagine a time when all gigs will be routinely scanned for people on the SOR. Then they might expand it to include other places where young people congregate, such as cinemas. That will gradually lead to more social isolation, as people will be scared to go anywhere, just in case the venue is being secretly spied on by the police.